XL98: Text Property Is Limited to 255 Characters

ID: Q182483

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

In Visual Basic for Applications macros in Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, when you use the Text property to read text from a cell, not all of the text contained in the object is returned.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs if you use the Text property to read text from a cell that contains more than 255 characters; the Text property can read only 255 characters from a cell.

WORKAROUND

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If there is a chance that a cell will contain more than 255 characters, use the Value property to read the text from the cell. The Value property can read up to 32,767 characters from a cell.

For example, if you want to read the text from cell A1, when cell A1 contains more than 255 characters, follow these steps:

1. Enter the following Visual Basic for Applications code into a module

   sheet:

      Sub Read_Text()

          MyVar = Range("A1").Value
          MsgBox MyVar

      End Sub

2. Run the Read_Text macro.

A message box with the text from cell A1 is displayed.

STATUS

This behavior is by design of Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition.

MORE INFORMATION

You can use the Text property in Microsoft Excel to read text from cells:

   MyVar = Range("A1").Text

In earlier versions of Microsoft Excel, the problem described in this article does not occur because cells can only contain up to 256 characters.

However, Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition allows up to 32,767 characters per cell. Because of this, the Text property may not work as expected when you use it to read a cell that contains more than 255 characters.

Additional query words: XL98 32,767

Keywords          : kbprg xlvbahowto xlvbainfo 
Version           : MACINTOSH:98
Platform          : MACINTOSH
Issue type        : kbprb

Last Reviewed: May 18, 1999